


the tiny spaces

by dustbear



Series: the tiny spaces [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Other, Panic Attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 19:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustbear/pseuds/dustbear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The battle in New York is only the second time Steve Rogers has seen New York again since his defrosting, and the first time went remarkably poorly. Afterwards, after shawarma, and a blissfully hot shower, they all meet in Central Park to see Thor and his nutty brother off, and Steve gets on his beautiful restored motorcycle that SHIELD had procured out of nowhere, and intends to get on the road, see the new America, and spend some time out in this brave new world he needs to rediscover.</p><p>He has only made it as far as Jersey City before his hands start shaking, and he finds an unmoving lump in his throat and a horrible sinking feeling in his stomach. He pulls off to the side of the road, and gasps for breath. It takes him 10 minutes to get himself mostly under control, and he turns back to New York with his vision still blurry and his heart pounding a lot faster than he’d like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the tiny room.

The battle in New York is only the second time Steve Rogers has seen New York again since his defrosting, and the first time went remarkably poorly. Afterwards, after shawarma, and a blissfully hot shower, they all meet in Central Park to see Thor and his nutty brother off, and Steve gets on his beautiful restored motorcycle that SHIELD had procured out of nowhere, and intends to get on the road, see the new America, and spend some time out in this brave new world he needs to rediscover.  
  
He has only made it as far as Jersey City before his hands start shaking, and he finds an unmoving lump in his throat and a horrible sinking feeling in his stomach. He pulls off to the side of the road, and gasps for breath. It takes him 10 minutes to get himself mostly under control, and he turns back to New York with his vision still blurry and his heart pounding a lot faster than he’d like.  
  
He reports back to SHIELD, where Nick Fury raises an eyebrow at him, but says nothing and doesn’t question his averted plans for his Great American Roadtrip. They offer to house him in an apartment in Brooklyn, even in his old neighbourhood, but he declines. He moves into the SHIELD New York Field Office, which has a few empty, practical, rooms, saying that he prefers to be close to the training rooms, where he spends his days obliterating punching bags. He wraps his hands too tightly with tape, feels the blood struggle to move through his finger and he fights and fights the inanimate bags until they give in and scatter across the floor like ungainly monsters. Fighting is all he thinks he knows how to do now. That is one thing that hasn’t changed at all and he still knows how to do it.  
  
\---  
  
The first familiar face he saw after he woke up after 70 years was Tony Stark’s, and Tony did not appreciate being told he was a familiar face. The next time they saw each other was not much friendlier, and although they shook hands in Central Park, Steve was quite certain that they were not friends.  
  
The second familiar face was Sharon Carter’s. She was pleasant, and pretty, and funny, and they sat in the cafeteria and she told Steve stories about her Aunt Peggy, and he laughed and felt normal for a little bit. But when she asked him if he wanted to go get lunch outside one day, maybe just a hot dog from a cart, Steve said he was busy. He was busy the next time too, and the next. Finally, when she asked him if he wanted to go with her to visit Peggy - _his Peggy_ \- in the retirement community, and he declined, citing training schedules, out of all things - as if he didn’t make his own training schedules - she stopped coming by. He wanted to apologize to her, tell her that it wasn’t that he didn’t want to see her, it’s just that he didn’t want to go outside, but that sounded so _stupid_.  
  
\---  
  
The next battle is in New York too - something about a robotic lizard, and Captain America leads the Avengers confidently, and they win of course, with zero casualties and minimal property damage. They go out for Vietnamese food afterwards and Natasha laughs when he fumbles his chopsticks and Tony says he’ll invent a pair of automated chopsticks for him. He still has the cowl on, and he laughs and tosses beansprouts at them.  
  
They part ways outside the restaurant, and Steve walks the 14 blocks back to the SHIELD field office staring straight ahead with a forced smile on his face.  
  
\---  
  
At his mandatory psych evaluation, Steve grins and shows that he knows how to use his SHIELD provided StarkPad and phone, and discusses the Vietnam War and shows a fluent understanding of modern pop music, and no one asks him why he never leaves the building except on Avengers missions.  
  
\---  
  
It is not a surprise to Steve when he punches another punching bag so hard that it flies off its chains again, but it is a surprise that it lands practically on Tony Stark’s feet, grazing his shiny leather loafers.  
  
“Whoa there, Cap.” Tony says, still leaning against the wall of the gym.  
“Stark.” Steve isn’t very sure what to say.  
“Um, hey.” Tony shrugs awkwardly. “I was meeting with Fury, catching him up on some new technological wonders of mine, and I thought I’d stick my head in - see how you were doing.”  
“I’m - I’m doing fine.” Steve says, his brain working in overdrive - for what exactly, he’s not sure.  
“I wanted to tell you that Bruce moved in to the tower, and it’s cool if you want to come by too.”  
“To - to Stark Tower?”  
“Yes, I have lots of towers, but that’s the one. It’s big and ugly, in the middle of New York, a bit damaged by aliens, can’t miss it.”’  
“I’m sorry about calling it ugly.”  
  
Tony sighs, and walks towards Steve, sitting on a wooden bench facing him. Steve avoids his gaze, focusing on unwrapping his hands far more intently than usual.  
  
“You’re not going to come to the tower, are you?”  
“No, I will, it’s just that -”  
“Fury sent me, actually. He said that you’ve haven’t left this building once of your own accord.”  
“I just haven’t needed to, that’s all.” Steve mutters defensively.  
“Really, Cap? Not one bit of curiosity about how New York has changed? No hot dogs? Feeding birds in Central Park?”  
“No, it’s not that - “  
“Look, I came here to give you something, but I already told Fury I’m not your babysitter. Whatever your problems are, you’ve got to sort them out yourself, okay? But you do have an open invitation to the Tower, like all the other Avengers. Got it?” Tony’s voice is rough, and purposefully nonchalant.  
“Yes.”  
  
Steve doesn’t know what to say and he isn’t sure that Tony hears his soft thanks as the man loudly walks out of the gym, already violently thumbing at his phone. He waits until he goes back to his bleak room to open the small, long box Tony had handed him - he figures it houses a wrist communicator, the box is about the right size for a watch like device, and on the last mission, Tony was bitching loudly about the SHIELD issued ones.  
  
It is not a communicator. It is a pair of chopsticks, that swing themselves up and skitter across his little table and dance around his metal desk lamp. They make Steve laugh and he spends the next half hour watching them wander around his room before he notices something else in the box, partially buried in the foam padding. There is a key - a perfectly normal key - with an exceedingly dorky Captain America keychain on it. Below it is a note, in scrawly, messy handwriting, that reads “Key to your room at Stark Tower. Come by any time. - T”  
  
Steve isn’t sure how it is, but the weight of the key feels secure and reassuring in a way he hadn’t expected.  
  
\---  
  
It takes him three weeks to get to Stark Tower, and he plots it like a mission. He has learned how to use Google Maps, which is a godsend, and he plans his primary and secondary routes, and two alternates. He leaves at 4am, before the sun rises and the streets fill with people. He arrives at 4:07am, because he is Captain America and he can run very fast and New York is not very big. Being out on the streets, even the mostly empty ones, inhaling the cool morning breeze for the first time in almost-forever, he feels like this is a small victory.


	2. Chapter 2

  
Tony is in his lab, taking apart an Iron Man gauntlet, when JARVIS announces that Steve Rogers has entered the lobby.  
  
“Shall I send him up to the penthouse, sir?”  
“No, no. I’m busy. Send him to his room. I’ll say hi when the sun’s up.”  
  
Tony watches as Steve responds with a surprising lack of surprise to JARVIS’s directions(of course, what has the guy done for the past few months except read briefing packets?) to his room. where he fumbles his key in the lock. He notes the shy smile that crosses Steve’s face before he steps inside and outside the camera’s vision.  
  
\---  
  
Steve’s room is sparse, much like his room in the field offices, but it is much larger. It is mostly unfurnished, and JARVIS tells him that he can order whatever he likes on his new StarkPad and it will be delivered, courtesy of Stark Industries. Steve says thank you, and commands JARVIS to replace any of Stark’s accounts linked to his purchases with his own account, which is filled with seventy years of backpay and far more money than he could possibly spend.  
  
Steve stays in his room for three days, with quick trips to the communal kitchen for a sandwich. He does not run into anyone.  
  
On the fourth day, Steve has a panic attack, and Tony listens to JARVIS’ reports about elevated heart rate and irregular breathing and doesn’t know what to do.  
  
On the fifth day, Steve opens the door and trips on a sketchbook and a set of drawing pencils.  
  
\---  
  
There is nothing wrong with Captain America. The Avengers work like a well oiled machine, with the tactical genius of the Captain at the helm. They defeat a giant squid and rescue a schoolbus of children from a mechanical spider, and they go out for a meal afterwards and they look like a team. They train together sometimes, at SHIELD. Black Widow and Hawkeye are on the SHIELD payroll and often out on some assignment or another, and he only sees them when they do missions together.  
  
Bruce and Tony work together in Stark Tower, although they have separate labs. Bruce’s is clean and organized and filled with soothing soft jazz. Tony’s lab is loud and brash and hazardous.  
  
Steve sees Bruce and Tony in the tower, sometimes, and he nods and smiles and they make stilted, polite conversation. He gently declines their invites out to lunch - there is so much paperwork to do after missions, and his reports are always impeccable - and Steve is certain that he is hiding well, that they don’t know. They are teammates, and tentative friends, but outside their suits, away from the battlefield, they don’t need to bond, really.  
  
Tony knows, though. Bruce knows, too. They know what a pair of empty eyes look like, they know hopelessness and they know what it’s like to be afraid.  
  
\---  
  
Steve dreams about drowning every night. The cold water enters his lungs, and he looks up to see a ray of sunlight peeking through a crack in the dense ice, but he can’t swim upwards towards it. All he can do is wait as he is dragged down into the darkness. He’ll wake up choking, and it has become so routine that he doesn’t really know what it’s like to wake up hazy and yawning anymore.  
  
\---  
  
Tony pounds on Steve’s door at 4 pm in the afternoon, and Steve leaps for it because it is the metallic clang of Iron Man’s gauntlet against his door. He is greeted by a grinning Tony Stark, in the suit with his helmet off, who says “Remember when you said you wanted to go a couple rounds with me in the suit?” Steve stammers out an apology, but Tony waves it away like he’s been forgiven long ago, and tells him to suit up.  
  
They wreck the downstairs training room, but at the end of it, Steve is smiling wide as he helps disentangle Tony from his suit.  
  
\---  
  
JARVIS tells Tony that Steve has downloaded a decade’s worth of woodworking magazines to his StarkPad and has purchased a set of chisels from Amazon with his own money.  
  
The next day, Steve gets a key pushed under his door. JARVIS gives him directions to the basement of Stark Tower, to a room near a garage. The room is a wood shop. It is filled with a mix of modern tools, and tools from many decades ago. Curiously, all of the modern tools are covered with a layer of dust, but all of the old ones are pristine and look carefully restored. There is a lathe in a corner, and stacks of wood boards - plywood, birch, white maple, poplar and a gigantic pile of stumps, that look roughly cut from a large tree. Steve runs his hand across the edge of the table saw and he feels like this is a place he could be comfortable.  
  
That night, he opens the sketchbook and sketches out plans for a simple wood box, and a coffee table for his room.  
  
\---  
  
Tony Stark shows up in the wood shop in a few days, when Steve is teaching himself how to perfect dovetail joints. He nods at Steve, who is surprised, but Tony does not force conversation, and just settles in by the lathe, and makes a bowl.  
  
It is Steve that breaks the silence.  
  
“I didn’t know you were a woodworker.”  
“I’m not, actually. But JARVIS informed me it was Pepper’s birthday next week and she explicitly stated that she’d like me to ‘make her something, not buy her something, and it had better not be a goddamn robot.’”  
“It’s a nice bowl.”  
“Yes, it can double as a housewarming gift, since she’s moving out.”  
“Oh. I didn’t know, I’m sorry.” Steve stammered.  
Tony waved his hand, “No worries, everything’s fine.”  
  
They work in silence for a bit longer, before Tony wanders over to ask Steve if maybe Pepper would like a jewelry box better. Steve starts talking to Tony about wood joints and pulls up several patterns and tutorials on his StarkPad and before he knows it, it has been three hours and the longest conversation he’s had in over 70 years.  
  
He helps Tony build the jewelry box, and Pepper loves it. She does not move back in to Stark Tower.  
  
\---  
  
Steve starts to fall into a comfortable pattern in the tower. He stays a bit longer in the kitchen every morning, and starts to cook breakfast for Tony and Bruce. They sit companiably, and don’t talk much - or Tony and Bruce do and he listens, but it doesn’t really matter, because he doesn’t understand what they’re really talking about. He goes down to the larger gym at the tower, instead of just attacking the punching bag hung up in his room. Tony tells him there is a shooting range at the tower too, and he gladly makes use of it, because that means that he doesn’t have to go to SHIELD anymore except for some meetings. And when that happens, Tony has Happy drive him and talks at him on the phone until he arrives, and Steve doesn’t have the chance to start freaking out about being surrounded by a whole new world that's only familiar in the wrong ways.  
  
On Thursdays, the Avengers assemble for movie night, and Clint and Natasha finally move in, and Thor comes back for very frequent visits, and Steve starts to feel better about their team cohesiveness when Clint throws popcorn at Tony, and Natasha scowls at everyone, but falls asleep on Bruce.  
  
He spends a lot of time in the wood shop. He’s taken a month to start working on his coffee table, and he’s on his third set of legs, because he decided the first two sets weren’t quite right yet. Tony comes down sometimes and they talk about wood, and they work together, and Steve starts to lose the antsy, nervous feeling he gets whenever he shares space with someone else.  
  
He spars with Clint and Natasha and individually, he has the upper hand, but together, they beat him easily. Bruce cooks dinner and Steve helps out. He doesn’t know the recipes that Bruce likes - exotic, spicy curries, and tender, braised meats with lots of herbs, but he can cut onions and carrots and peel potatoes with the best of them. The team starts having dinners together in the tower, and he thinks that they see him so often now that they probably don’t notice when he begs off their “field trips” out into the city. He feels proud that he’s fooling even Natasha into thinking that he’s totally fine, or at least that she’s not pinpointing the problem quite correctly.  
  
It is Natasha that accidentally spills his secret to everyone, when she and Clint grab him and cheerily declare that they’re going to get some burgers. They manhandle him into the elevator and out the front doors and they are dragging him along so quickly that it takes a block for Natasha to notice that he’s gone pale, and his eyes are unfocused. He’s broken out in a cold sweat, and he is breathing jaggedly. He tries to explain to her that everything is fine, but his tongue feels swollen and his throat feels raw and his eyes burn. He runs back to the tower, Natasha and Clint fast behind him, but they let him go when he disappears into his room.  
  
He sits partially curled under his coffee table, and strokes the lathed curves of its legs monotonously as he waits for his heart rate to subside.


	3. Chapter 3

It is Tony that finds him there and crouches down to sit with him, a hand lightly and carefully placed on his arm. Steve feels embarrassed to be seen this way, but his skin craves human touch, and everything is cold, except for the warmth of Tony’s fingers.  
  
When Tony speaks, it is low and quiet.  
  
“I’m afraid of having my head underwater, if I’m not in the suit. I haven’t been swimming since Afghanistan. Hell, I’ve only taken showers, for the fear I’ll slip and lose my balance if I try to take a bath. I have nightmares about drowning all the time.”  
  
Steve nods, but the words he says are different from the ones in his head. “How did you get in?,” he asks, “I locked the door.”  
  
Tony sighs. “Aside from the fact that this is my tower, the key doesn’t actually do anything. Your door is coded to your biometric signature, and monitored by JARVIS. I have the override codes.”  
  
“The door doesn’t lock?” Steve says.  
“It does lock. It’s just that the key...I thought it would help you feel comfortable. That you’d be more likely to come over if you had a key.”  
  
Steve sits up and leans his back against the coffee table, and Tony positions himself similarly. Steve tries not to feel disappointed as Tony moves his warm hands away from where they were on his arm.  
  
“So, the key’s just symbolic.”  
“Well, there is a deadbolt, but literally everyone living in this building knows how to pick that lock, so it’s pointless.” Tony shrugged.  
  
They sit together a little longer, before Steve says “Thanks, Tony.”  
  
“About the key?”  
“No - well, yes - but telling me about - about the -” Steve pauses to get his thoughts together, “I have nightmares about drowning too. And I’m afraid of being outside.” he says.  
“I’ve noticed. Hey, stay here, we’ll hang out.”  
  
Tony leaves for a moment and returns with a bottle of scotch, and microwaved leftovers. Steve doesn’t have a television in his room, but Tony finagles JARVIS into projecting Disney movies on the wall. They sit on his couch, with their legs up on Steve’s coffee table and eat leftover chinese food.  
  
Steve goes to get his robotic chopsticks to try them out with the leftover chinese food and Tony lights up when he sees them.  
  
“You kept them!” Tony exclaims.  
“Of course. They’re great.”  
“I’m glad you like them.”  
  
Steve smiles. He can’t quite bring himself to tell Tony right now that the silly mechanical chopsticks were the first thing anyone had given him since he woke up that wasn’t a weapon, or inextricably tied to something they wanted him to do, so he just says “I love them. They make me laugh” as they skitter around his plate of chow mein and make more trouble for him than just a normal pair of chopsticks.  
  
That night, Tony falls asleep on Steve’s shoulder, in the middle of The Lion King. Before drifting off, he mumbles “I’ll do everything for you, Steve,” and Steve whispers back, “You already have.”  
  
\---  
  
Steve tucks Tony into his bed, and he takes the couch. Tony is small under the blankets, and drooling on his pillows a bit, but his face is relaxed.  
  
Steve sees it now. The chopsticks. The key to the room, meant to make him comfortable. The key to the woodshop - of course that room didn’t really use an actual key either -  and the wood shop itself.  
  
Steve figures out why all the old tools were clean and the new ones were dusty. All the old tools newly acquired to fill out the workshop and to make it look like they had always been there, like Steve was no trouble at all, just using things that were already present. Tony wanted to make it look like he hadn’t spent any money on the shop, because he knew Steve would feel awkward about it.  
  
And the sparse room, even though he knew that the rooms for the other Avengers came with far more furniture, he realized that Tony wanted to give him something to do, something to focus on besides battles and catching up on history. Something to help him cope with the new world he’d been thrust into unwillingly. He thinks of the peaceful hours spent sanding his coffee table and he gets it.  
  
He looks at Tony, curled up under his sheets, and wonders how someone can care so much about a scared soldier out of time and out of place.  
  
\---  
  
Steve dreams of drowning again, like he always does. But this time, looking up at the teasing ray of sunshine through the ice, he sees a metallic red and gold gauntlet reaching down for him. He can’t reach it yet, he keeps on sinking instead, but it remains there, outstretched towards him, and does not retreat.  
  
When Steve wakes up choking again, almost falling off the couch, Tony grunts in his sleep and rolls over in his bed and Steve manages to fall back asleep to the sound of Tony’s light snores.


	4. Chapter 4

Natasha and Clint are sheepish the next morning and apologize profusely, but concisely.  
  
Later, Clint tells him that he feels most comfortable up in the air, that his skin crawls whenever he’s below ground. He also says, a lot more flippantly, that he doesn’t like clowns, but Steve understands the gesture.  
  
Natasha volunteers, out of the blue, while they’re sparring, that she hates being tied up, even if she knows she can get out of the restraints at any time. She glares at him after she tells him, vaults over his head, kicks him in the shins, and makes him swear never to tell anyone.  
  
Thor is back in Asgard, but Jane Foster calls him and asks how he’s doing and says that Thor sends his regards and love.  
  
Bruce doesn’t say anything, but he invites Steve to cook with him every single night for a few weeks. Steve understands, he thinks, cooking for Bruce is like his woodworking, something structured and achievable. It’s somewhere to put his monsters and fears, not to banish them, but to make them co exist with a normal life, filled with friends, and hobbies and the delicious smell of chicken rendang, the Malaysian curry Bruce is trying out today.  
  
\---  
  
It still takes some time before Steve leaves the tower. The others do not press him, but when he walks into the kitchen one day, rummages through the cupboards, and says offhandedly, “We need to go grocery shopping, we’re out of potatoes,” they pull their shoes on, and Tony does not point out that all the groceries to Stark Tower get delivered on Tuesdays.  
  
Steve walks to the grocery store in the middle of the pack of Avengers and he notes that they carefully prevent anyone else from getting too close, while talking to him constantly, keeping him distracted. He laughs a little inside, thinking that it was silly that Captain America needed an Avengers bodyguard detail to buy some potatoes, but he feels alright, surrounded by Natasha and Clint laughing and making faces at each other and Bruce whistling a tune he’s never heard before. And Tony - Tony is next to him, his hand softly resting at the small of Steve’s back, and Steve feels alright with that too.  
  
They buy five pounds of potatoes, and flour and sour cream and applesauce.  
  
Bruce insists on grating the potatoes by hand, while Tony points out that he already made a robotic food processor that does so 4 times as efficiently as a Cuisinart. Steve makes latkes for everyone.  
  
\---  
  
No one presses him about anything, they’re just always there and ready if he decides he wants to try going out somewhere.  
  
Clint goes with him on a 5 minute walk outside to procure hot dogs.  
  
Natasha walks with him when he goes to meetings at the SHIELD field offices, and she appears out of nowhere when he’s ready to leave to walk back with him, even if he hasn’t said a word about his plans.  
  
Tony takes him to a specialty wood supplier when Steve starts talking about the properties of zebrawood. They buy three hundred linear feet of lumber, and Tony resists whipping out his card to pay for the haul and delivery to the tower, letting Steve sign the receipt.  
  
He still panics sometimes. It never happens during a mission, when Captain America is in control, but when Steve Rogers looks around, and sees that everything has changed, and no one he once knew is alive, and he is so very alone, someone’s hand reaches out and steers him back to Avengers Tower and reassures him that he is not alone. It is usually Tony’s.  
  
\---  
  
Tony and Steve build two side tables, and four chairs for his room.  
  
Then, they build Natasha a rocking chair, which takes two weeks because Steve insists on hand shaping the rockers, and also that they should be perfectly even. Steve stains it a dark red. Natasha blushes with surprise when they present it to her, and the chair starts appearing in random places around the tower, often filled with a quiet Natasha and a Russian novel.  
  
Clint asks them if they can make a bow. They try, but it’s not a very good one. Clint uses it anyway, not in actual battle, but he has them make wooden feather-fletched arrows with suction cups attached, and soon Stark Tower is a battleground. Tony programs a bunch of little robots to fight back against Clint. Steve shrugs innocently when Clint is attacked by a pair of robot chopsticks - what would he know about programming robots anyway?  
  
They make a ridiculously large goblet for Thor on the lathe, fill it with Pop Rocks, and leave it in his room for his return.  
  
Bruce just gets a simple chopping board, but it is oiled perfectly and the woodgrain is lovely. He uses it every day, and declares that everything chopped on it is more delicious than anticipated.  
  
\---  
  
It gets better, and it doesn’t. Steve goes out with the Avengers more, and they eat meals, and visit museums and go shopping together. As long as someone - a friend - is with him, his heart usually pounds a steady beat and his brain functions normally, and he can talk to Natasha about Picasso and compare prices on tomatoes and calculate appropriate tips(at least 50%, if you are with Tony Stark). He starts taking short trips out alone and he thinks that maybe in a few months, he’ll try the subway.  
  
He still has the panic attacks, and sometimes they have no real cause that he can figure out, and he apologizes always, and Tony rubs his back and tells him that he’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with him, he’s not broken.  
  
“If you’re broken, Steve, then we all are, and that’s just not a very nice thing to call us, is it?” he says, and Steve laughs a difficult laugh.  
  
\---  
  
Tony is there. He is always there. He’ll say that he wasn’t really busy that day(untrue, Tony Stark is always busy) and behaves like he’s imposing on Steve’s time(he’s not). He finds way to share space with Steve, even if Steve is just reading or writing mission reports.  Tony falls asleep on Steve’s couch while watching movies a lot. Every time, Steve tucks Tony into his bed and takes the couch, until one night Tony wakes up while Steve is arranging blankets around him and pulls at Steve’s arm until he gets in bed too.  
  
When they sleep in the same bed, their nightmares wake each other up, even though they are both sound sleepers, and sometimes it is Tony that holds Steve when Steve’s drowning, and sometimes Steve holds Tony when Tony’s drowning.  
  
When Tony wakes up with a jolt, his hands scrabbling at his arc reactor, it is Steve that puts a gentle hand on his chest and whispers him back to sleep, the heaviness of his large hands reassuring Tony that he’ll keep the reactor in, and protect it - and Tony - with his everything.  
  
They don’t kiss, not yet. They are clothed in t-shirts and boxers when they climb into bed together, and they are still too tired, too broken, to explore further. They’ll take the time to explain this thing, this connection, between them later, but right now, this is enough.  
  
\---  
  
Steve is drowning again. He looks up as the cold fills his lungs and sees again, the horrible, faraway streak of sunlight through the ice.  
  
This time, it’s not Iron Man’s gauntlet that reaches out to him, it’s Tony’s hand.  
  
Steve reaches up, and grabs it.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! <3 this is my first fic. :)


End file.
